Not the Best of Family: Revised
by okh-eshivar
Summary: Nanao begins experiencing violent nightmares, and it seems like the only one able to keep them at bay is Shunsui. Little does she know that said fact in itself may end up being the death of him.ShuNao centric slight Momo Hitsuguya later on
1. Chapter 1

1**Hey everyone! Okay, this is the revised version of Not the Best of Family. In fact, it's going to seem like a completely different story for a while. When I wrote Not the Best of Family I had been watching the show for like literally a week. And it sucked (my story XD). So hear you go! Enjoy and comment pretty please!!**

_Whooooooo!! This 13 year old just graduated middle school!! Give me a shoutout Cassieeeeee! I miss you! _

**--**

**Chapter 1**

Nanao reluctantly pried her eyes open and rejected the sun's bright greeting, turning her body away from the small window to the right of her futon. What had she been thinking, putting her bed right across from a window? Even she didn't know. Squinting through her eyelids in a futile attempt to shroud the sunlight, she glanced at her alarm clock out of the corner of her eye. Her eyes suddenly shot open, joining in with a sharp intake of air and her back shooting up, throwing the thin sheet on top of her onto the floor and scrambling out of bed in a frantic hurry. Cursing through her teeth, she threw on her uniform, tying the sash in a secure knot around her waist and ran into the small bathroom to further prepare herself. About ten minutes later the door flung open and a prim and perfect Ise Nanao stepped out, grabbing her glasses from their resting place on the top of her dresser and sliding their arms around her face to rest behind her ears. She bolted out of the apartment and sped down the walled paths. This would be the first time she was ever late to the office in the history of ever. She continued running through the rather maze-like streets of the Seireitei but didn't bother with shunpo. She was already late. She might as well take her time. "_Kami give me strength. I sound like my Captain". _Her left arm rose to block the overpowering light that flooded the streets in golden hues.

What time was it? The sun was unusually high in the sky for the time her clock had given her.

And why did the pathways leading to the Eighth look so unnervingly empty? Normally she would have to almost struggle to get to the main office at this time of day. Had it not been for the superior status she held over those crowding the halls to its breaking point, she assumed she would have suffocated in the sea of bodies long ago. Just one of the many reasons she tried to get to the office as early in the morning as possible.

The aura that currently hung throughout the Eighth Division even as she approached the office with growing urgency was beginning to exceed the point of unnerving. She felt vaguely as if someone was secretly mocking her, similar to the feeling Aizen had betrothed all of Soul Society with after his betrayal. Aggravation soon turned into panic when she searched the area for traces of her captain's riestu and found only fading remnants from the previous day. Of course, that's not what was causing the rapid increase of alarm she was undergoing. If that was the case then she'd be suffering extensive paranoia issues every day, considering the time of day he normally came waltzing through the office doors. No, what worried her was the fact that she couldn't pick up _anyone's_ reistu in the Eighth. It's as if everyone suddenly disappeared.

Her eyes suddenly shot to the door closest to her left when a sound similar to the small noise a puppy makes after getting accidentally stepped on. With one hand glowing with what she was prepared to create a level three spell with and the other quietly wrapped around to knob of the door, she pulled it open as swiftly as her shaking hands allowed her to.

Her scream was stifled by those made by the division members hiding inside.

"_Happy Birthday, Ise fukutaicho!"_

Her heart skipped several beats as her confused mind put everything together. That's right. Today was her birthday. She hadn't set her alarm clock because her captain had given her the day off. There was no one on the streets because practically everyone who belonged to the Eighth Division was squeezed into this room. Lastly she wasn't able to detect anyone's reistu because everybody was wearing power containment gigais.

"_Great,"_ Nanao sighed mentally. "_I wonder how much those costed."_

Regardless, she still smiled warmly at the obviously planned-for-weeks gesture and tried to enjoy herself as much as possible for the next couple of hours. But still, she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that seemed to stalk about the party behind her.

"Nothing to worry about," her captain beamed after she had spoke to him discreetly regarding it. "It's nothing that sake and a little fun can't cure." And for once she actually agreed. She was going to enjoy herself today, and nothing was stopping her.

...

A tall, shadowed figure cast an ominous aura about the dungeon-like room like an enraged tiger who had just lost its prey.

"What do you mean, 'I didn't even try'?! What could have possibly caused you to even consider not going after her? You had the perfect opportunity and you just sat back and watched it fly by! ," a choleric voice bellowed furiously, his words cracking through his clenched jaw.

The slim figure of the only other occupant in the room shifted lazily against the cold concrete wall, showing no signs of intimidation or care. His arms rose from his sides and came up to rest behind his head as he stretched his long legs across the floor as if lying on a lounge chair. No signs of care indeed.

"Oh, c'mon! It was her _birthday_! You can't do that kind of thing to someone on their birthday! ," he argued back in a matter-of-fact manner. The other sighed, aggravation painted quite clearly in his voice.

"You're talking like her brother," he retorted, irritated with the arrogance of the other man's sense of moral value.

"Lisen? God, I haven't seen him since forever! You must not be very influential if I'm talking like him and not like _you_," he jested, weaving a quiet laugh carefully in between the syllables in such a way that it almost resembled mock.

The standing figure suddenly felt as if he would explode in a fit of uncontrollable rage. "Where has your sense of respect gone? Your sense of honor? Have totally lost all value?!" the ocean deep voice bellowed, giving off the kind of radiating, enraged aura that would have told most people to submit. Of course, the black clad figure baring ivory locks was not and did not consider himself 'most people'. Only he had the nerve to laugh in the face of fear itself.

He threw his hands into the air, mocking his 'neutral' part of the agreement, and slyly scoffed.

"Hey, now. Don't you start that speech again. Alright, I'll take care of it first thing in the morning, if I feel like getting up..." He added unnecessary emphasis to the last part of the sentence just to either piss him off or push him farther off the edge. "Now then..." He rose slowly leaning his weight on one arm, then balancing carefully forward and upright on his bent legs and finally pushing himself upward on his toes. "...if this little conversation is over, I think I'll go retire. Can't mentally torture someone tired, can you?" He started laggardly for the door.

"Can you not at least begin constructing the dreams tonight?" the darkened figure haggled frustrated.

"Um...no? I told you already, Birthdays are off-limits for me. _You_ wouldn't torture Nanao on her birthday, would you?"

"Seku, Why would I have even bothered to have this conversation if–"

"Well, I wouldn't. G'night."

His hand gripped the handle lazily and pulled the heavy door open. The man's dark voice stopped him again halfway threw the doorway.

"Oh, and Seku?"

"Yes?"

"No more games."

Seku rolled his eyes indolently.

"Yeah, whatever."

The momentous door swung shut and all at once the crisp nocturnal air waning through the widely opened window in the center of the wall before him was all that accompanied the looming silhouette. Fine, then. Tomorrow it will all begin. A few petty nightmares. It was obvious he wasn't a big fan of the plan, but Seku somehow waned him into the idea and now he was stuck with it. At least he could count on his son's improbability and lack of patience to insure that this overbearing prelude won't last long.

No one likes a long prologue in the way of a decent book after all. Eventually we all grow impatient and skip a few pages. Knowing Seku, he'll want to jump right into it, hell he'll probably end up skipping the first few chapters just to get to the action. Perhaps an alternating chain of horrendous nightmares and the next night blissful fantasies? Or a whispering, portentous premonition hidden in a beautiful mix of irony and affliction? He will find a way to make certain she was crying out in her sleep and sobbing through the night to keep herself from drifting. A wicked, lingering grin overtook his face. Tomorrow Seku will spend the day constructing fitful, _impressionable _nightmares, together with an uncontrollable desire to sleep. By nightfall he will have throughly plagued her mind for the first of many nights, and by the first moonless night, he will have her broken spirit clutched in his mocking grasp.

Yes, and a fine couple of weeks it will be.


	2. Let the Chaos Begin

**Author's note****: Wow. It's been a long while since I looked back on this story. In fact I planned on abandoning it but a couple of recent reviews convinced me to do otherwise^^ I love all reviews of any kind and if you favorite this story in any way, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT!! I spent my time doing this instead of memorizing my monologue for my freshman history class. Procrastination rocks, doesn't it? XD Again, I started the first version of this in 6****th**** grade, and that's why it sucked so much. If you still wish to read it, here's the link: ****.net/s/3904769/1/Not_the_Best_of_Family**

**Enjoy!**

_**OoOoOoOoOo**_

Nanao launched forward from her unrestful slumber with a frightening start, her breath forcing itself through her teeth in sudden, gasping spurs. Her body was trembling violently, and heat was radiating from her skin in a suffocating concoction of precipitation and uncontrolled reistu.

Her head whirled around as sudden realization introduced itself into her confused mind. Her room. Her quarters. These were her quarters. She felt the soft cotton sheets beneath her with a stray hand. Her bed. The window provided little light, and the curtains were drawn shut, a ritual she preformed only in the late evening before bed. Night. She must have been sleeping. A dream?

Nanao took her first controlled breath since her eyes had first shot open moments ago and wiped her forehead hap-hazardly with her palm, squeezing a fistful of fabric in her fist for comfort.

Yes, a dream.

She felt with two fingers for her pulse at her wrist. The artery throbbed rhythmically against the pressure in violent notions.

Calm down, Nanao. Calm down. It's over.

Her heart slowed slightly, but not as sufficiently as she had hoped. The most minute flicker of light from beyond her curtains or creak of her wooden floorboards caused her to jump, sending her pulse rocketing skyward once more. It seemed as if the entirety of the room was creaking under some kind of weight, and she rather abruptly noted the state of the atmosphere contained in the air.

Heavy. The air seemed to be saturated; it weighed down on her shoulders, causing a sort of claustrophobic reaction in the pit of her stomach.

And…

Glowing? The air was phosphorescent-like in the darkness, and it danced almost as if it held some form of tangibility or life. It weaved and spun and heaved momentously as the breathing lungs of some trivial giant would, disrupting the gentle sigh of the wind that casually crept through the window to her left and replacing it with something far more dense.

Her reistu. She lost her grasp on it sometime in her slumber. Damn it all, she thought off-handedly. It should not be that easy for me to lose control over it. A simple nightmare… She willed the energy to subside as best she could.

A nightmare? She hadn't had a nightmare in years; she rarely even dreamed. This one, although she was able to retain but a few small fragments, was frighteningly realistic. Even now she found herself questioning whether it truly was just a theatric perceived by her mind's eye. Or perhaps it only seemed so realistic because she was still trapped in the confinements of that alternate world? She pinched the skin on her right arm to be sure.

Ouch. She sighed roughly, irritated by her own train of thought. This is what happens when she's been out of the office for too long, she begins to become delusional. It's already been two days after her birthday and…

How long had her reistu been raging like that? Surely not that long, since Kyoraku had not yet—

A soft knock rapped against the shoji door followed by a concerned voice.

"Nanao? Is everything alright?"

Another sigh. Spoke too soon I suppose.

She willed her legs beneath her and stood, slowly at first as to avoid losing her balance in the darkness, reached for her nightstand on which her glasses lay, then made her way across the room towards the shadow on the thin paper door.

"Nanao?"

"I'm fine Taichou. Please forgive me for worrying you" she replied quietly before she had even reached the door, stopping short of the handle. She knew he could see her shadow through the thin material, just she could see his. She also knew that, due to the fact that it was the middle of the night, she had seconds ago awoken from a nightmare, and she was drenched in sweat, her appearance wouldn't be as prim as she would rather.

"Are you sure? Your reistu flared a little while ago."

"I am positive, sir. I appreciate your concern."

"…May I come in?"

"I wouldn't see it as necessary."

"You sure about that? You sound a bit anxious. Nightmare?"

She was beginning to grow bored with this conversation. She responded with a deep silence, hoping that he would take it has a hint and leave her be.

He didn't.

"I bet your wondering how I knew. Go ahead and ask me how I knew."

My, his persistence can be irritating.

"…How did you know?"

"Magic powers. I can read people's minds," he joked casually.

"I'm sure. It's 2 a.m., my reistu flared, and I'm currently awake. Chances are I had a nightmare."

"Your sarcasm stings, Nanao-chan. May I _please _come in?"

Yet another sigh.

"I would rather you didn't, sir."

"…Please?"

A vein throbbed violently from her forehead. Honestly, the nerve of this man…She already felt a severe migraine creeping across the left side of her face.

"Sir, I have an important meeting very early tomorrow morning as well as paperwork to complete and it would be incredibly preferable to me if I am well-rested for said arrangements. So please let me be."

"Yare, yare, Nanao-chan. You work so hard every day. If you start overworking yourself it could be bad for your skin" he cooed to her shadow.

Another sigh. "Surely arguing with my superior officer through a door will be bad for my skin as well" she retorted in a matter-of-fact fashion.

She grasped at the handle in front of her, but the door was sliding open before the cold plastic had a chance to meet her touch.

"Was that a yes?" he grinned widely.

And yet another sigh. Tonight wasn't going well obviously, judging by how so very often that notion seemed to make itself apparent. He strolled into the room with a notable aura of casualty and made himself comfortable on the rather disarrayed futon lying on the floor, still beaming like a child on Christmas. He pawed at the sheets, pushing them off to the side, and motioned for her to sit next to him.

Oh no. She knew his plan, and he would most certainly not get the better of her simply because it was dark and she needed someone to rock her back to sleep after a bad dream; not that she did. Instead she took her leave into the small kitchen in the corner of the room and put some water on to heat, then turned the knob one quarter to the left on a small table lamp, providing them with a minimal amount of light, not too overbearing to the eyes.

"Would you like some tea, Kyoraku- Taichou?"

"Hai, my Nanao-chan. That would be lovely."

"Careful sir," she warned almost subconsciously.

She seated herself beside her captain with that, keeping a steady eye on her company's hands. At the moment she wanted nothing to do with them.

"So, Nanao-chan? Would you like to talk about it?"

"About what, sir?"

"Why, your dream of course!"

Oh, right. The dream…. she had nearly forgotten about it. My, his presence can be distracting at times.

"I only remember small fragments of it, Taichou. I don't see it as entirely necessary to complain of such trivial matters."

"No, no, no, Nanao-chan. Not to complain about it, just to talk, get it off your chest if you'd like", he responded, waving his hand dismissively in the air in front of him.

" It's said that if you talk to someone about your dreams they tend to leave you alone for awhile."

"Is that so?" she replied with an uninterested tone. "Fine." She leaned back slightly and threw her head back to stare at the ceiling with closed eyes, trying to recollect the images that had played through her mind.

"Fire. There was fire…everywhere. Not just fire though. There were people burning inside of it. They were almost…melting. Their skin was falling off of them like wax. And…they were screaming, I'm not sure what though. It seemed to be directed at me, but I'm not entirely sure. And…a face…" Her eyes shot open suddenly and her hands went up to cover her face. Her torso curled under itself and her knees were brought up to cover her head. Shunsui drew closer to her, caught off guard by her sudden recession. "Nanao-chan, what is it? What did you see?"

She lifted her head from the confinements of her legs and turned her neck to face the concerned man at her side. A single, glistening tear left her eye and slid down the curve of her cheek, halting just short of her chin. It dwelled there, until a shivering hand wiped it away, dismissing its existence.

"Nanao-chan?"

"It was Lisa. Her body was the only one I truly recognized. She was just standing there, letting the fire consume her. Her skin was flying off with the ashes, and…she looked…angry. Angrier than I had ever seen her alive. She yelled something at me, through her rage and the fire. What had she yelled…?"

"Nanao, you shouldn't—"

"_You were the one who was supposed to die._"

Shunsui froze. "What?"

"That's what she had yelled at me. She looked positively enraged. I was…" she hugged her knees closer. "I was scared."

He hesitated with his next question. "…What happened next?"

"I'm not sure. I can't remember, although I have a feeling it continued to some degree."

"Nanao-chan, does it—"

A scream erupted from the kitchen abruptly. Nanao rose, teetering on her feet for a moment, and walked into the kitchen to pour their tea. Lifting the kettle from its place on the stovetop, her shaking hands got the best of her and she lost her grip on the handle, moist with condensation from the rising steam, sending the scalding metal tumbling to the ground. The boiling water splashed as it made contact with the floor and sent a spray of lethal fluid colliding with the exposed pale skin of her lower leg and ankle. She let out a brief shriek, more out of surprise than pain, and instinctively jumped backwards, away from the reach of the torrid water. Unfortunately she underestimated how much she had actually spilled and lost her balance upon landing, slipping on the liquid that seemed to have found its way into every open space available to it, and falling back-first onto the hard wood floor. The corner of the countertop directly behind her caught the base of her skull as she went down, sending immediate waves of distress shooting threw her head and cascading down her neck. She responded with a blunt yell and a string of words Shunsui somehow knew he would never here from her again. He was up and on his feet without a moment's breath, making his way swiftly into the site of the chaos. There he witnessed the most adorable scene he had ever seen involving his Nanao-chan. She was curled up on the ground with both her knees drawn skyward and her head face down on top of them, both her hands intertwined in another, cradling the point of contact the back of her skull had made with the furniture. The water had managed to spread everywhere, the kettle still sprawled in front of the stove. Shunsui knelt beside her, careful to avoid the liquid, and placed a gentle hand on her back, massaging lightly.

"Yare, yare, Nanao-chan, you seem a bit more distracted than usual," he chuckled, amused by her child-like position.

"Just tired Kyoraku-taichou," she hissed through her teeth.

"Then you should sleep."

She would have disagreed on any other night, as not to be rude, but he spoke the truth; she had a fair amount of work to complete tomorrow as well as several meetings to attend to and the last thing she wanted to be was exhausted.

He scooped her off the floor in one clean motion and carried her back into the previous room, setting her down gently onto her futon. Her clothes had managed to somehow keep dry, but he decided to ask if she wanted him to help her change anyway. She responded with a prompt 'No' followed by a solid whack on the head. He watched like any respectable guard would as she settled down into her covers and drifted off into subliminal unconsciousness, keeping a close eye on the rapidity of the rising and falling of her chest. After he was sure that she was sound asleep, he made himself comfortable in the corner next to her and began to grow heavy-eyed in his own right, slowly making his way into the warm and welcoming arms of slumber.

----------

The ivory-haired boy sighed to himself in the most exasperating of fashions. She had awoken faster than he had anticipated, and he had spent the majority of his evening constructing the nightmare for tonight. Once the cycle is broken he finds it to be increasingly difficult to continue the same storyline in the same night, and he frankly wasn't up to spending the entire night trying to fix the connections.

"Oh, well" he thought to himself sluggishly. "That big guy who walked in would have woken her up anyway." He hadn't really put too much effort into keeping her unconscious in the first place; if he wanted to go all out, he would have simply plagued her with eternal waking and let it run its course. But he felt like experimenting a bit first, to see what struck her nerves just the right way, before tossing anything big together.

"Well?" a curious voice emerged from the shadows behind him.

" 'Well' what?" he replied smugly.

"What did it mean? '_You were the one who was supposed to die_'? "

"You really want to know?"

"If you're going to start playing mind games with me Seku—"

"Absolutely nothing."

"…Pardon?"

"It meant absolutely nothing. Hell, I don't even know who that chick was. I just did a little memory digging and found her waaa~y buried in the back, so I thought, 'Hey, if a memory of her was buried this deep, then she must have been either very important or very unimportant to Nanao.' I rolled the dice and took my chances, and apparently landed the jackpot.

"Ah, yes. I had forgotten about that little trick of yours. 'Memory digging'…And that man?"

"What about him?"

"Was the dream intended to continue or were you relying on the appearance of that man to end it sufficiently?"

"Nah, I didn't know he was going to show up. I was kind of running with the fact that last time I saw her in person, she wasn't exactly a social butterfly. I wasn't really expecting her to have anyone come running to her side because of a little nightmare."

"Then your plan failed?" The figure immersed in darkness was beginning to sound a bit testier than Seku would have liked.

"No, no. It might have been small, but that tiny remark will eat at her for days. I've planted the seed, now we just have to wait for it to grow."

"I thought you told me that comment meant absolutely nothing?"

"Yeah, but she doesn't know that."

"…I see. Construct the next couple to share the same basic structure as this first one. It seems to suffice for now, if what you say is indeed true." The shadow shot the white-haired boy a razor glare.

"Yeah, yeah. No need to get pushy. I'll start them tomorrow afternoon, if I'm up to it." He made certain to emphasize the last phrase, ending it with a smirk. There was just something about irritating this guy that was so…_fun_.

"Seku."

"Hm?"

"About that man…if he starts getting in the way, I suggest you act on it."

"And what _are_ you suggesting exactly?"

"Kill him. Quick and simple."

A/N: I don't use a thesaurus or a dictionary, just a 14-year-old mind, plus this is the first copy. If you spot any grammatical or spelling errors, please tell me!! Comment or I will sic a PMSing Nanao on you and by golly it will not be pretty. XD


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hello, third chapter here^^ Thank to the people who are keeping up with this, I love you all **

**;) **

**Enjoy and please review!**

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Nanao awoke to the wafting, delicate scent of freshly ground mint and cherries weaved into the air around her. Hazy curiosity found home in her semi- conscious mind as she yawned deeply and cuddled the thin blanket closer to her form, her eyes remaining gently shielded from the waking world.

'That smell…'

Her tired muscles found the energy to lift her torso in a lazy undulation of her spine as she stretched her back, the snapping of the air pockets between her vertebrae offering a small bit of comfort to her exhausted body. The passed night had brought her nothing but grief and bothersome wonder; trivial matters she would rather keep shoved in the farthest corners of her mind. Her arms silently gave into the ever-existent pull of gravity then, her stomach landing back onto the thin mattress. She pulled her hips to the right and settled on her back to stare blankly at the bare white plaster of her ceiling and inhaled deeply, analyzing the delectable smell on the air.

'It smells like…'

"Good morning, my beautiful Nanao-chan."

The deep rumble of the succeeding voice caused Nanao's body to lurch forward with a start. It took her but a solitary moment to discover the owner of the sound. A tall, pink clothed man baring long russet hair knelt just two feet from her side, holding a small plate and smiling warmly.

"Taichou…?"

"I made you breakfast, my lovely Nanao-chan. It's a favorite of yours, I presume. Cucumber Raita with a splash of lemon and fresh mint leaves" he sang with a hint of pride in his voice.

Nanao stared at the small salad with a tinge of interest.

"How…how did you…?" she cursed herself for not being able to speak coherently.

"Is that really important?" he questioned. "Go on, eat up. I want to see if I prepared it correctly."

She eyed him warily before taking a petite bite from the dish in front of her.

"Well, how is it?"

"It's…" her eyes widened slightly at the mingled taste on her tongue. "It's perfect" she breathed before forking another, healthier mouthful. His smile glowed brightly as he savored the compliment. "I'm glad you like it, my precious Nanao-chan. You're so skinny I sometimes wonder if you ever eat at all" he chuckled lightly.

"Well, it's hard to find the time when I'm locked in the office all day completing _you're_ paperwork."

"Yare, yare, Nanao-chan. You know you can leave whenever you deem it necessary."

"Yes, but anything that isn't completed will only pile up, until it's too much for me to handle."

"And then your handsome Taichou would come to your rescue!"

She gulped down the last of the salad with a little more force than before. "I would really appreciate it if you didn't wait until then."

With breakfast out of the way, Nanao rose to her feet, neatened her bed, and made her way across the room to the western style door on the north wall.

"Excuse me, Taichou, but I need to get ready for work. Thank you for breakfast." For one, single moment, a small smile flash across her lips as she pulled open what seemed to the door to the bathroom and turned into it, closing the opening behind her.

Finally.

Shunsui collapsed from his kneeling position onto her newly made bed and cuddled slightly into the covers, squealing beneath his breath like a small schoolboy. God, he had been holding that in all morning.

He thought back on their night fondly. Although he had come to her room expecting the worst, he had received the absolute best. The image of his Nanao-chan that night was unforgettable. There she was, standing in front of him, wearing nothing but a thigh-length pure white night yukata, and although he certainly wouldn't have objected to viewing even more of her, it did little to hide the true beauty of his lieutenant that was so often concealed beneath the flowing layers of her day uniform. It seemed to be slightly moist from the anxiety produced from her night of terror, and it clung to her body, exposing more of it than he had ever seen of her. As the night paced by he had noted some odd (but of course not unwelcome) changes in her…physique. The first thing he had noticed was her bust, which had mysteriously gained a size (or two) since the earlier hours of the day. He remembered Rangiku once mentioning during one of their drinking sessions that she wrapped them with bandages every day, but the reasons she did such a thing was foreign to her.

For distraction's sake, he guessed. Lord knew how much his Nanao hated distractions.

The second was her legs. They were flawless, untouched by unattractive blemishes or scars, as well as thin and toned. Their true elegance lied in their length, which, without the black cloth confining them from his view, was truly something to admire. Surprisingly long, but not unattractively so; the kind of length that required most women to arm themselves with a pair of stilettos in order to obtain.

And the third, her hair. Without the clip holding it in place, it poured down her back in long, ebony waves, and even from where he was sitting, he could tell it would be like silk laced in his fingers. He had so desperately wished to take such chance, to simply reach out and take her into his arms, to kiss her lips, to lull her to sleep with the sound of his heartbeat…

But not tonight.

The fourth, otherwise what he labeled the most captivating, was her eyes. Without the lenses of her glasses interrupting his view of them, they were absolutely breathtaking. They shone a vibrant hue of heliotrope with a soft gray ring around the outer regions and a sharp tint of sapphire towards the center. Honestly he was having a hard time talking to her without seeming rude or staring.

She was…Perfect.

-------

Seku resisted the urge to grind his teeth together in frustration. My, this man was certainly going to prove to be troublesome.

Even with the blatant fact that he was supposed to be plotting her downfall, he couldn't help but feel a bit protective of her. She was his little sister after all. And this guy…

Man, this guy was something else. Ran to her side when she had a little nightmare, stayed with her the entire night, made her breakfast, and on top of all that didn't try even once to cop a feel? In her most vulnerable state? She probably wouldn't blame him if he had…In fact he could think of more than one way she would have reacted that **didn't** include a kidou to the nether regions.

_I really wish he'd just do something stupid _he found himself thinking. _Just give me an excuse to hate your guts so it doesn't feel so wrong when I do what I about to._

**A/N: Yeah, I know, sucky ending. But who cares? Stick around for part 4!!!**

**Please Review!!**


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: Whoops, I haven't updated this is a while. Well, here you go, people! Please enjoy and comment! BLAH summer's over in less than a month now. I don't want to go into 10th grade! I feel like an old person!

Enjoy!

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It's dark.

She didn't like the dark. It reminded her of her past, and…something that she couldn't quite place, like a memory that was lost to the very deepest corners of her mind.

Voices echoed around her in a mirage of sounds and whispers that reminded her of static, like someone trying to scream at you over the ripping of a hurricane.

Noise on the line:

"What do you expect me to do? I can't fix something this brok--"

"No, you cannot have an ice cream. It's almost time for dinner and you'll ruin your…"

"Josh! Joooosh! Where are you, man, talk to us! Tell us where you--"

"I hate it when she does this—"

"Yeah, I got into a wreck on the way home. No, I'm fine, but the car is totaled—"

"nao…"

"I trusted you! I trusted you and now you turned your back on me like—"

"I feel like someone's watching us, you know? Like in some kind of horror—"

"Nanao…"

"Seriously though, dude. It was totally bogus! I hate that guy so—"

"Who's hiding now—"

"I can't find him! This is fucked up, dude! Stop—"

"Nanao…!"

"**AhhhhGet out of my head!!"**

"**Nanao!"**

I felt my entire body jolt at the sudden thunder of a deep, familiar voice.

Kyouraku Taichou.

Before I even realized that I was awake, my torso leapt forward, throwing the thin sheet covering my body from my chest. My breath was coming in ragged gasps, and my throat felt as if it were full of sandpaper. Water…

Apparently I had said the singular word aloud without realizing, because a quarter of a moment later the man who had at first awoken me, his eyes bent with worry and his brows knotted, passed a glass of cool liquid into my hands and whispered the word, "Here."

I took it gratefully and downed the entire glass in one long gulp, closing my eyes in the process. Evidently, such an action wasn't wise, for the second darkness returned in my mind's-eye, the waking nightmares flooded in with it. Flashes of red and portraits of the dead invaded again, flesh melted from weeks of humid decomposition and faces bent and broken. Screams of horror and disarray arose in sharp inflections as abruptly as the images. My eyes shot open as quickly as I could possibly will them to, and suddenly the container in my hand became hostile. I felt my suddenly tense muscles clench tightly around the object, shattering the fragile material in my fingers and sending shards through my skin. For the second time on this night my body again reacted subconsciously, flinging the remnants of the glass across the room to smash further against the hard surface of the wall. The sound resembled that of violent rain, or a waterfall. My throat tightens up around the fluid I had previously swallowed and sends vicious coughs ripping through my neck, making it impossible to breath. A large hand found my stiff shoulder then, giving it a slight concerned squeeze. Again my panicking body reacted, grabbing at the wrist as if it was that of a sworn enemy and attempting to throw it away. But, as my damaged fingers wrapped about the offending person's, a swift hand caught my own wrist and held tightly.

"Nanao, Nanao. Relax, it's me. It's alright. Everything's alright."

For some reason, the statement enraged me to the point of instant anger. Tears were suddenly behind my eyelids and rolling over my cheeks, their saltiness staining my lips and leaving wet trails streaming down my face.

"No! It's not 'alright'! I can't even close my eyes anymore! I can't stand it! It's driving me insane! Let go of me!" But he didn't let go, in fact, the harder I struggled and writhed against him, the tighter his grip became. I was breaking, right there, right then, in his presence, which soon became in his arms, sobbing into his shoulder. His arms were wrapped around my back, his lips at my ear, whispering things like, "It's okay", and "I'm sorry, Nanao."

His words calmed me slightly, and 10 minutes after the tears had begun, they were halting to a stop. "There, there. See? Everything's fine, Nanao-chan." For the first time that night, I lifted my head, and surveyed my location.

My room. Dark…It's still dark. Night? The windows were still drawn, and the only source of light in the area was a small candle to the left of my futon. The air smelt of static and fear.

I feel an abrupt touch on the top of my head. A hand, weaving long, slow strokes through my sweat slicked hair, and a deep, lulling voice…

"Your hand, Nanao-chan. Your bleeding."

Realization floods in as my gaze flicks to my battered fingers, which had been resting on Kyouraku Taichou's shoulder. His hoari…

"Oh! I'm sorry, Kyouraku Taichou, I've gotten blood on your hoari…"

His chuckle is calm and low. "It's alright, my dear, as long as you are. Nothing a little Oxy Clean™ can't get out. Now then…"

I felt strong arms lift my still shivering body into the air, carrying me somewhere into a darker area of my room.

"Where…?"

"The bathroom, silly. I'll clean up that hand of your's and you can go back to sleep. Okay?"

Sleep was something I least wanted anything to do with at the moment. But my hand hurt terribly, its pain radiating through me in peaks and valleys, numbing my entire arm in the process.

"Yes…"

A light flickered on suddenly, it's sight temporarily blinding me and causing my neck to turn away on instinct, burying my eyes into the chest of my captain.

"Nnn…"

"Oops, sorry about that, Nanao-chan."

He placed me down gingerly at the entrance of the medium size bathroom, gesturing me to take a seat on the toilet while he strode over to the medicine cabinet over the sink and pulled its polished handle. I couldn't make out exactly what he had gathered from in there, but a moment later he was kneeling in front of me, holding my damaged hand gently in his and examining it with the utmost care.

"Ouch. This certainly looks painful…" he commented, grabbing something from the pile of material he had taken from his previous location.

"Here."

"What is it?"

"Just some painkillers. It should help a bit."

I took them and tossed them in my mouth with my good hand, swallowing the medicine without water. Holding anything remotely dangerous wasn't a risk I was willing to take, and he seemed to understand that.

"Alright, this might hurt a bit, so try to distract yourself."

His free hand began to glisten with kidou, and before I could ask what he was doing, the magic had encompassed my wounds, extracting the glass shards all at once. 'Hurt a bit' didn't even begin to cover it. One thousand tiny needles stabbed my brain as nerve endings explode to life and skin is slowly pulled away from my exposed flesh. I bite my tongue hard enough to draw blood and try my best not to scream.

A moment of unbearable pain, and it was over. He worked fast. In a flurry of hardly seen movements, his hands wiped away the blood.

"Alright, now we've got to disinfect it."

No.

Oh no no no.

"Hang on a minute-"

"C'mon, Nanao-chan. The faster we get this over with the less it will hurt later."

He led me to the sink with a white, clearly marked bottle in his hand.

'Hydrogen Peroxide. 3%'

Oh, crap.

---------

Seku smiled inwardly to himself. It had been over two months since he had begun stringing his nightmare brethren together for his dear sister, and finally, _finally_ he was making progress.

The plot of this situation reminded him of a movie he had watched recently._ Closet Land_, it was called; it was really an ingenious piece of work. One part, in particular, captured his liking, when the Man had bolted the Woman to the black table, and placed a recorder near her head and played a tape that repeated the same sentences over and over again, like a deadly lullaby. "_We must break your body to win your mind. Resistance will lead to consequences and therefore it is foolish to resist." _The woman would tell herself the same thing to herself to keep herself awake. _"Pain will only strengthen my will. You can break my body but you cannot break my mind. Torture is the policy of tyrants. Resistance is my only weapon." _When the Man returned and asked why she will not sleep, she replied, "Sleep is death."

_Sleep is death. _Sleep was his weapon. Resistance against sleep was resistance against life. It was impossible to escape sleep, and therefore impossible to escape dreams. Dreams and nightmares. She reminded him of the closet child, with her cat with green wings, and her Flying Cow, and her Friendly Rooster. The Friendly Rooster, who would keep lookout and crow when Mama was coming. That man was her Friendly Rooster, and therefore he was his enemy.

Without The Friendly Rooster, the Closet Child would have no way to escape Mama and her wrath. Resistance would be lost, and Nanao would be his.

Soon, very soon. The time to make his ultimate move was nearly upon him.

It was nearly time to infiltrate a world forbidden to him and rid himself of her Friendly Rooster…

'_Shunsui Kyouraku…'_

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A/N: I loved that movie, Closet Land. I had to put a referance to it in here, so I apologize if some of you didn't get end….

Stay tuned! Next chapter should start to get a little familiar to the old Not the Best of Family readers as Seku makes his first direct move into Soul Society.

PLEASE COMMENT!! 


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Next chapter! Please read, comment, and enjoy!!

And thank you to everyone who as been following this story! I very truly appreciate it!

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It's time.

The white- haired man rose lazily to his feet, grasping at the wall as he stood in order to recover his lost sense of balance. Slowly, he made his way across the room, his chest suddenly shooting with a familiar pain, and took his place in front of a large, polished mirror.

"Nanao…my dear sister" –his tone was markedly more serious than usual – "now is the time you pay for the crimes you've committed against us in your past…"

He pulled at the corners of the pure black skintight shirt he wore, lifting it over his head and balling it up tightly in his right hand. He stared into his reflection in front of him, and grinned bitterly at his own body.

Stretched across his torso lie three memories of his sister, three markings that reminded him of their past, their present, and their future. Three streaks of hatred that fueled his actions, three memoirs of the unbearable agony he had suffered, both physically and mentally, and of his close brush with death, over 200 years ago.

Three grotesque scars, each perfectly parallel to one another, stretching from the back of his left shoulder, over his collarbone, and down to just beneath his ribcage on the right side. Each was deep and discolored, the shade of a dying purple rose, sun-bleached and no longer beautiful, and a full inch wide, tapering out at the edges. He ran his fingers over the middle scar's surface.

'_It's a bad idea, Seku. Going this far…'_

Seku opened his eyes to find a different reflection staring back at him. It was that of another young man, who bore hair as black as a moonless night and pale white skin, with eyes that reflected the shade of a heliotrope. Heavy violet, he knew those eyes.

"Lisen! You're looking well. I see you let your hair grow out a bit. It looks nice on you," Seku commented with a wide smile on his face.

' _You're making a mistake, Seku. There is no reason behind your actions against Nanao, she's suffered quite enough already' _ the reflection spoke, his face radiating a look of utter seriousness.

Seku's smile faded into a neutral line, his gaze transforming from lackadaisical to hostile within seconds. "You stay out of this, _vultus vas purgamentum_. You haven't got a shadow of an idea of how much pain I went through at her hands. And now…" He turned to the open window to his left. "…now she'll know herself."

'_Seku, this is foolish! Your following the will of our father, and he's manipulating your past to get what he wants from our sister. You know this-'_

"Shut up…"

'_Your playing right into his little game, and you're the one who's going to end up dealing with the backlash. I don't know what she did to you, but I hardly think it warrants carrying a grudge for this long. You haven't seen her in 200 years-" _

"Shut up! Just shut up! Ever since we were little you've always looked down on me, always ridiculed and belittled me at every fucking turn! I know what I'm doing, and I know what you're doing, and it's not going to fucking work this time. So stay out of this. Wait-"

He turned back towards the mirror, he eyes wild and his voice faltering.

"I know what's going on. You don't give a shit about me, you're just protecting Nanao…Haha…You're just…protecting…Ow." Seku clutched at his chest, a sudden shot of rapid pain radiated through his body and smashing into his skull with the force of a speeding truck. His legs gave out, unable to hold the sudden buckling weight of his weakened body.

"AhhhhHHH!"

'_Seku-'_

"Shit!"

'_Seku, are you alright? What's the matter_?'

"What the hell do you care?! You're just gonna-AHHH!" The scars were glowing now, resonating a green light and pulsing madly as if to remind him of his goal.

"Yeah, yeah. I…I got it. Just…stop it already…" The pain faded slowly, taking another small bit of his sanity with it. Seku stood sluggishly, his energy drained from the sudden shock, leaning on the windowsill as he went.

"God dammit, that hurts." He slipped his shirt back over his head, pulling his hair through the opening of the neck and letting it drape over his shoulders. His hands glided over the clothing's surface, smoothing out wrinkles and allowing the fabric to lie flatly against his chest.

"Get out of here, Lisen. There's nothing you can say to me that would change my…" He looked back into the mirror, only to find his own reflection staring back at him yet again.

'Heh. That's the one thing you were always good at.' He thought silently. 'Leaving.'

"He's probably going to warn your sister, you know. He's obviously been watching you for quite some time now." The dark figure let the door close quietly behind him. "You should get going."

"Yeah, yeah. I don't tell you how to do your job". Seku walked across the room once again, past the chilly man, and knelt in front of a large white chest bound in silver chains. He touched his index finger lightly to the binds and watched as they crumbled as easily as a crushed, dead leaf, brittle and frail. Kidou. That was one thing he could thank Nanao for.

The cover lifted off its support with little difficulty. From within the heart of the chest he pulled a long brown bundle of fabric, a red pouch of some sort, and a sword. He got to his feet and shook the cloth in the air, admiring the amount of dust that emerged from it's creases. His smile withered away as quickly as it had appeared as he tossed the old cloak about his shoulders, securing the two corners at the neck with a small golden latch and pulling the slack hood over his head from behind him. With another hand he reached up to his face and pulled a thin sheet of fabric of the same brown color over his mouth and nose, leaving only his eyes exposed, tawny and sharp as yellow wine. The rest of his body remained completely covered by the cloak, it's edges lost seamlessly in the sea of fabric. His left arm outstretched to grasp the small red pouch and pull it into his cloak, where it disappeared within its creases, alongside the sheathed blade.

"Alright" –he strode over to the open window- "Let's get this show on the road."

Seku closed his golden eyes to his mortal plane, and entered a place he formally referred to as his realm of power. Within this place, his ability was boundless, and his body was free of any binds it once held in the physical world. This was a place where reality was bent and logic meant so little that one could say it was completely nonexistent. Where horror, fantasy, and truth all meshed together as one single being and where whole lands, whole _worlds_ were created and destroyed with the effort of batting an eyelid.

_**Dreamscape. **_

-------

In Soul Society, Ise Nanao writhed relentlessly in her sleep, her legs twisting and tangling themselves beneath the thin sheets that covered her body.

Shunsui Kyouraku stood watch over her, with one hand clutching her's and the other resting gently on her cheek. She was burning hot. He had noted relatively early on that her body temperature spiked when she experienced nightmares, almost to the point of being considerably dangerous; not only to herself either, but to everyone within a quarter mile of her as well. Her reistu was out of whack, reacting with the panic that her mind was fabricating within her dreams. It was thick, and intense, so much so that he had to spike his own in order to keep it in barely tame order.

What pained him the most though, wasn't her reistu. It was the sad fact that he could do nothing to help her. Waking her seemed to do little for either of them by any standard. She woke physically, but her mind was still trapped within the fabric of itself, ensnaring her body in twisted horrors and dreamt fantasies. And to make it worse, she more often cried out his name in her slumber, as if to search for salvation of some kind, any kind. He would run his fingers through her slicked hair, or squeeze her slender hand in his own, or hold her shaking frame until she managed to awaken herself.

She'd been so drained lately, for reasons that he could easily guess. She'd sleep for hours, days even, and still wake up completely exhausted, her reistu wavering like a candle in the wind. Her nightmares were reeking havoc on her body, as well as her mind.

Again, her frame shook as another shudder and distressed moan raked through her.

It was going to be yet again a very long night.


End file.
